http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europe/11/04/france.riots/index.html

Fiery riots spread beyond Paris

Friday, November 4, 2005; Posted: 7:50 a.m. EST (12:50 GMT)

PARIS, France (CNN) -- Rioting erupted for an eighth straight night in the impoverished suburbs of Paris, with angry youths setting fire to a school, a bus depot, three warehouses and hundreds of vehicles.

Although officials said the unrest late Thursday and early Friday was less intense than in previous nights, the disturbances spread outside the Paris region for the first time.

Violence was reported in some 20 communities around Paris and across the country, including areas near Rouen in northern France, Dijon in the east and Marseille in the south.

In the Seine-Saint-Denis region to the north and east of the capital, youths fired buckshot at riot police vehicles in Neuilly-sur-Marne, The Associated Press quoted the area's top official, Prefect Jean-Francois Cordet, as saying.

A group of 30 to 40 youths harassed police near a synagogue further east in Stains, Cordet said.

However, police reported seeing fewer large groups of youths rioting, and "contrary to the previous nights, there were fewer direct clashes with the forces of order," AP quoted Cordet as saying.

"The peak is now behind us," Gerard Gaudron, mayor of one of the worst-hit suburbs, Aulnay-sous-Bois, told France-Info radio. He said parents were determined to keep their teenagers at home to prevent unrest.

"People have had enough. People are afraid. It's time for this to stop," AP quoted Gaudron as saying.

Officials said 187 vehicles and five buildings -- including three sprawling warehouses -- were destroyed overnight in Seine-Saint-Denis, located between central Paris and Charles de Gaulle airport.

More than 400 vehicles were destroyed across the entire Paris region, including about two dozen buses at a terminal near Versailles, authorities said.

Police detained 27 people and reported two injuries -- one a policeman and another a handicapped person badly burned during an arson attack on a city bus, Reuters reported.

The latest violence flared despite the presence of about 2,000 additional police officers, and despite hopes that festivities marking the end of Ramadan would calm tensions.

Much of the rioting has occurred in areas heavily populated by poor African Muslim immigrants and their French-born children who are weary of poverty, crime, poor education and unemployment.

The unrest has drawn attention to simmering discontent among much of France's Muslim population -- at an estimated 5 million, Western Europe's largest -- many of whom often complain of job discrimination and police harassment.

While the troubled suburbs of Paris and other French cities are often the scene of unreported car-torchings and other small-scale violence, AP reported, the current unrest is unusual in terms of its duration and the way it has spread.

The rioting began last Thursday after two teenagers of African descent -- Bouna Traore, 15, and Zyed Benna, 17 -- were accidentally electrocuted while apparently trying to escape from police by hiding in a power substation in the Paris suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois.

Officials have said police were not chasing the boys, and the Interior Ministry has released a preliminary report exonerating officers of any direct role in the deaths, according to AP.

On Friday, the brother of one of the victims called for youths to "calm down and stop ransacking everything."

"This is not how we are going to have our voices heard," Siyakah Traore said on RTL radio, AP reported.

A police union official has proposed establishing a curfew and bringing in the military to help handle the rioting, while some members of the opposition Socialist Party have suggested the police should withdraw from the communities to quell the unrest.

The pressure is on
The violence adds to the pressure on Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, who cancelled a trip to Canada this week to tackle the situation and soothe a public row between his ministers over the government's response.

Vowing to restore order, de Villepin on Thursday called a series of emergency meetings with officials throughout the day, including a working lunch with Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy.

"I will not accept organized gangs making the law in some neighborhoods. I will not accept having crime networks and drug trafficking profiting from disorder," Villepin said at the Senate in between emergency meetings.

The situation has sparked a war of words between de Villepin and Sarkozy, his political rival ahead of 2007 presidential elections.

Speaking to parliament Wednesday, de Villepin demanded punishment for lawbreakers but used calmer language than that used by Sarkozy, who has been criticized for calling the protesting youths "scum."

"Let's avoid stigmatizing areas .... let's treat petty crime differently to major crime, let's fight all discrimination with firmness, and avoid confusing a disruptive minority with the vast majority of youngsters who want to integrate into society and succeed," he said.

In some areas, unemployment runs as high as 20 percent -- more than twice the national average, de Villepin told lawmakers.

On Wednesday, President Jacques Chirac called for calm, adding that "the absence of dialogue and an escalation of a lack of respect will lead to a dangerous situation."

"Zones without law cannot exist in the republic," Chirac said


------------------------------------


And the always brilliant Randall Parker reports: (ALL OF THE FOLLOWING ARE HIS WORDS AND DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT MY VIEWS)


The natives do not want the French police in their areas. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4397056.stm



How dare the police think they have a right to patrol a neighborhood during a riot. You'd think the police see themselves as legitimate enforcers of the law and that the police see the laws of their own society as applying to everyone.

How do you apply the law to rioters in a spirit of dialogue and respect? http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=worldNews&storyID=2005-11-02T125149Z_01_KNE228332_RTRUKOC_0_UK-FRANCE-RIOTS.xml&archived=False



Apply the law in a spirit of dialogue? The "dialogue" has to get pretty physical with rioters. Imagine the French cops saying to rioters "I respectfully bash you to the ground and hope you will respectfully respond by staying down and groaning".

Cope is worried about an "escalation of disrespect".



Too late Mr. Cope. France has had no-go areas dominated by north African Muslim Arabs for years.

France now has spokesmen for poorly behaved ethnic groups who defend the right of their groups to burn cars and riot without getting insulted in response.



Politicians in America are under tighter taboo rules about what can be spoken aloud than those in France. But the taboo enforcers are gathering strength in France as well.

Note that France has an "Equal Opportunities Minister" and that minister has a name that denotes a non-French origin. France, like Brazil, is in the process of implementing racial preferences to discriminate against whites and for other racial and ethnic groups. This will fail to improve performance of the lower performing groups just as it has failed in the United States.

When groups need preferences that's a sign that immigration policy should be adjusted to keep out those groups. The French like to argue their society is superior to American society in various ways. However, through immigration policy the French have now inflicted upon themselves higher crime, riots, no-go areas in cities, racial preferences, and religious conflict.

I meant to start a thread on this last night, but forgot.

I've been trying to read a bunch of articles on this subject, and it still leaves me with plenty of questions. Just an awful thing that is happening, and I have no clue what the solution might be.

I got maced one time in Paris, those people really know how to protest.

I've seen articles about this around for at least a few days now. It may not have been the front page story on CNN every day, but it isn't like the US media has been ignoring it completely. Also, it's not like there haven't been some rather important happenings in this country that will obviously draw more readers.

Sounds like an awful situation, though.

Let it burn,
Wanna let it burn,
Wanna let it burn,
Wanna wanna let it burn

maybe all these western european countries need to stop letting in so many immigrants.

I blame the Black Legions.

Paris Police fire on youths wiht rubber ball guns.



http://www.afrik.com/IMG/mov/Keufs_1.mov


Cannot be sure if that is authentic. Here's the source:

http://www.afrik.com/article8965.html

There are some serious tensions between Muslims and the French Government. France, from what I hear, is trying more and more to become a closed society--imagine being a marginalized group in a country. This, in some ways, is a violent civil rights movement--and it was sparked by police violence!

Makes you wonder what would happen in Los Angeles if people like Pat Buchanan and Tom Tancredo got their way on issues like immigration.

I don't see how this was sparked by police violence. It's been this way in those projects around Paris for years.

Bullshit.

I'm sorry, it wasn't police violence, I was just talking out of my ass.

I do think these riots are a result of some ethnic tensions, but they are being perpetuated by human stupidity.

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2005/11/04/D8DLRF301.html

Unrest in Paris Suburbs Enters Second Week

By JAMEY KEATEN
Associated Press Writer


LE BLANC MESNIL, France


Small, mobile groups of youths hit Paris' riot-shaken suburbs with waves of arson attacks, torching hundreds of cars, as unrest entered its second week Friday and spread to other towns in France.

A woman on crutches was doused in flammable liquid and set on fire earlier this week as she tried to get off a bus in a Paris suburb, a judicial official said Friday. She suffered severe burns.

In the eastern city of Dijon, teens apparently angered by a police crackdown on drug trafficking in their neighborhood set fire to five cars, said Paul Ronciere, the region's top government official.

Another 11 cars were burned at a housing project in Salon-de-Provence, near the southern city of Marseille, police said.

Overnight in the Paris region, at least 520 cars were set ablaze, up from previous nights, the Interior Ministry said. It said five police were slightly injured by thrown stones or bottles.

But unlike previous nights, there were few direct clashes with security forces, no live bullets fired at police, and far fewer large groups of rioters, said Jean-Francois Cordet, the top government official for the worst-hit Seine-Saint-Denis suburb northeast of Paris.

Instead, he said, the unrest was led by "very numerous small and highly mobile groups," with arson attacks that destroyed 187 vehicles and five buildings, including three sprawling warehouses.

"The peak is now behind us," said Gerard Gaudron, mayor of Aulnay- sous-Bois, another badly hit town. He told France-Info radio that parents were determined to keep teenagers home to prevent unrest. "People have had enough. People are afraid. It's time for this to stop."

In the northeast suburb of Sevran on Wednesday, youths doused a woman on crutches with flammable liquid and set her on fire with a burning rag as she struggled to get off a bus, a judicial official said, citing the bus driver's report to police. The driver, who had ordered passengers to leave the bus because flaming objects were blocking the road, helped the injured woman get off, the official said.

Justice Minister Pascal Clement deplored the incident Friday, saying it caused him "great emotion."

The rioting started Oct. 27, after youths were angered over the deaths of two teenagers _ Bouna Traore, 15, and Zyed Benna, 17. They were electrocuted in a power substation where they hid, thinking police were chasing them.

Traore's brother, Siyakah Traore, on Friday urged protesters to "calm down and stop ransacking everything."

"This is not how we are going to have our voices heard," he said on RTL radio.

Car torchings are a daily fact of life in France's tough suburbs, with thousands burned each month, police say. Police intelligence has recorded nearly 70,000 incidents of urban violence this year, including attacks on police and rescue services, arson, throwing projectiles, clashes between gangs, joy-riding and property destruction, Le Monde reported.

What sets this unrest apart is its duration, intensity and the way it rapidly grew beyond the original flashpoint of Clichy-sous-Bois in northeast Paris to become a broader challenge for France. No urban violence of this nature has lasted this long, said Pascal Perrineau, director of the Center for the Study of French Political Life.

Many of the riotous youths are the French-born children of immigrant parents. The unrest has laid bare discontent simmering in suburbs and among immigrant families who feel trapped by poverty, unemployment, and poor education.

France's Muslim population, estimated at 5 million, is Western Europe's largest. Immigrants and their children often complain of police harassment and job discrimination.

National police spokesman Patrick Hamon, however, said there was "nothing that allows us to say that Islamists" were behind the recent unrest.

Some 1,300 riot police fanned out overnight across Seine-Saint-Denis, as the unrest entered its second week and followed Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin's vow Thursday to restore order.

A commuter train line linking Paris to Charles de Gaulle airport northeast of the capital ran a scaled-back service Friday after two trains were targeted Wednesday night. The SNCF train authority said one in five trains was running and conductors of night trains were demanding onboard security.

Youths fired buckshot at riot police vehicles in Neuilly-sur-Marne, east of Paris, and a group of 30 to 40 harassed police near a synagogue in Stains to the north where a city bus was torched and a school classroom partially burned, Cordet said.

In Trappes, to the west, 27 buses were incinerated. But the unrest was scaled back from the sometimes-ferocious rioting of previous nights, when bullets were fired at police and firefighters without causing injuries.

Gee, don't like being in a country where you feel exploited, poor, and discriminated against? DON'T FUCKING GO THERE TO BEGIN WITH. This is really simple. Every last one of those law breakers should be rounded up and deported.

What's the weather like in your delusion?

Is Paris Burning?

2oz. cognac
1oz. Chambord

Chill and strain into a shot glass.

reuters was all over this from the start, but it took about 4 days for the riots to escalate to truly front page news. AP didn't file a real story on it till about then, when the riots really went up a notch.

So i guess every NON white, conservative, christian male should be leaving the USA very soon now.

By the way "Truth" Unleashed.... you are ..... THE WORST POSTER EVER!!! When you have a real thought or educated opinion please post, you are exhausting.

and i guess our forefathers should have just left the colonies too, although i don't know how much conservative and christian play into it.